Boeing revealed a few more details about its T-X training aircraft
at the Paris Air Show in June and how this platform could evolve
into new roles.REPORT Jamie Hunter
T
HE US AIR Force is getting
closer to receiving its brand
new jet training aircraft — the
Boeing T-X. The company
is still awaiting a formal
announcement from the
air force on a numeric identity and
name for the aircraft, but squadron
personnel have already commenced
familiarization ights in the initial two
development aircraft.
The USAF is replacing its venerable,
60-year-old, T-38 Talons with Boeing’s
all-new ‘clean-sheet’ aircraft, which was
announced as the winner of the T-X
competition on September 27, 2018. T-X
was the rst major acquisition program
to be run under the USAF’s ‘Bending the
Cost Curve’ initiative. Boeing won because
its jet ticked all the boxes when it came to
performance, plus it o ered a unit cost of
under $20 million, which left its mature
competitors in the dust.
Speaking at June’s Paris Air Show,
Boeing’s Thom Breckenridge, vice
president of international sales, told
reporters that the company expects a
global market for some 2,600 advanced
jet trainers in the era of its T-X. It knows it’s
tapping into huge potential, but it needsto be realized if the company is to make
serious money with the T-X.
T-X was broadly aimed at 351 new
aircraft and associated training systems
under a planned budget that was as much
as $19 billion. Boeing’s winning bid was
worth $9.2 billion! The initial number of
aircraft is purely for Undergraduate Pilot
Training within Air Education and Training
Command (AETC) but there are several
avenues that will o er additional buys
from the USAF. Boeing is already looking
at light attack and aggressor training
opportunities for the aircraft and it says
it has already identi ed locations for
hardpoints under the wings. Coupling
low cost and high performance makes the
Boeing aircraft an exciting overall prospect
for the USAF.Next steps
The T-X program is now into the
Engineering and Manufacturing
Development (EMD) phase under an initial
$813-million contract that includes Boeing
and its partner Saab delivering ve aircraft
plus seven simulators to Joint Base San
Antonio-Randolph, Texas, from 2023 to
commence initial instructor pilot training.
Two batches of low-rate initial productionThe fi rst two T-X
aircraft fl y over
the Gateway Arch
in St Louis. Boeing(LRIP) and eight full-rate production lots of
aircraft will follow.
The rst two jets, serials N381TX/ T-1
and N382TX/ T-2, completed 71 pre-EMD
ights between December 2016 and
December 2018, notching up su cient
test ying to have satis ed the USAF — a
few re nements are expected in the ve
EMD aircraft, although Breckenridge
wouldn’t be drawn on the status of these
aircraft, but initial EMD ights with T-1 and
T-2 commenced this June.
Boeing test pilot Matt ‘Phat’ Giese
did, however, give a few details on the
cockpit and its large-area display. ‘This
is a recon gurable display with multiple
tactical and administrative or navigation
displays that can be presented,’ he said.
‘You can see the F-22 [side] stick [on the
right] and on the left is an F-16 throttle.’
The students and instructor will have
‘switchology’ for simulated release of both
air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons and
the aircraft is complemented by a Boeing-
developed ground-based training system.
Boeing says it has been able to leverage
some of the innovative technology
and investment made in T-X on the
commercial and defense side, without
going into speci cs. One example of
the cross-pollination may be found
in the latest Super Hornet Software
Con guration Set H14. This features
embedded synthetic training modes, and
with a new large-area display planned
under the Block III upgrade, it’s an example
of where T-X meets the front line.INDUSTRY REPORT // BOEING T-X UPDATE
36 September 2019 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
36-37 T-X Update C.indd 36 18/07/2019 13:45